Occasional reflections on Life, the World, and Mathematics

Republicans are shocked by what they see as the self-destructive fury of “Black Lives Matter” protestors. These people are driven by pure hatred of white people, they say. The land is descending into unprecedented chaos, they say, from which only Donald Trump can rescue us.

I was just reading Rick Perlstein’s history of the US in the 1970s, The Invisible Bridge, and came across this report about events immediately surrounding the 1974 election:

In West Virginia the Thursday before Election Day someone exploded fifteen sticks of dynamite under the gas meter at the school board building just minutes after the superintendent left… Dozens of white men patrolled Campbell Creek with shotguns, following rumors over citizens’ band radio that carloads of blacks were on their way to burn churches. The next day school buses were shot at, and a car owned by parents who insisted on sending their kids back to school was blown up. A police cruiser escorting a school bus was punctured by a rifle shot.

This was all because of disagreements about the choice of school textbooks. When things became more serious — a stabbing incident in a high school in South Boston — it led to this incident:

A mob of white parents formed a blockade around the school to trap the black students and made ready to storm the building. Shattering glass; police horses charging. “Kill the niggers! Kill the niggers!” “Niggers eat shit! Niggers eat shit!” A chorus of mothers led that cheer. President Ford put the 82nd Airborne on alert.

Like fascists everywhere, the Trumpsters work hard to gin up the disorder that they claim alone to be able to master.